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Be Joyful

Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I will say, rejoice! Let your gentleness be known to all men. The Lord is at hand. Be anxious for nothing, but in EVERYTHING by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the PEACE OF GOD, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. Philippians 4:4-7

These are verses I memorized years ago and they are written on my heart. There are times when I still need to remember not to be anxious, but I eventually listen to my heart saying these verses. I didn't really understand what the "peace of God" was until I experienced it. It's having peace inside you, even when you're going through heartbreaking situations and trials. It does "surpass ALL understanding" and you know it comes from GOD alone. Praise the Lord for His wonderful promises!

I love, love, love what I do. I am passionate about the things I create and the talents God has placed in me. I SO appreciate the time you take to look at my things and the comments you all leave me!

Blessings to you!

Kathy

Counting My Blessings

About Me

My name is Kathy and I have been creating things with my hands since I was very little. I'm a stay home mom. I have two handsome boys at home, Daniel (17) Cameron (15). I love the Lord and I depend on God every day to help me and allow me to use the talents He's given me.
I am so thankful that I can do what I absolutely love, creating things. My creations are truely Joyfully Made!

FTC Declaration

FTC Declaration - I declare that I am a freelance designer. I currently receive or have received in the past products that I promote and endorse as a freelance designer for free or at a discount from the following companies: Heartfelt Creations, Our Daily Bread Designs, CottageCutz, The Robin's Nest, Scor-pal, Paper Temptress, Elphine House Australia, Creative Embellishments, Really Reasonable Ribbon. Any product that I use in my designs and recommend, I do with complete honesty. I have not and would not recommend products I do not personally love.

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Monday, October 31, 2011

I made another card using the embedded embossing technique that I did back in June. This is a technique where you piece and qlue items on paper and then emboss it with an embossing folder. I have had this on my desk a while trying to finish it. I finally came up with this and I'm still not happy with it...it's way too "busy". Oh well! It is a fun technique to do though.

I'm submitting this to the F4A88 - Free For All Challenge on Split Coast Stampers.

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Here is another New Elisabeth Bell stamp being offered exclusively by Elphine House Australia. The stamp is called "Daisy Scattering Love". This one is really cute. My first thought was how old-fashioned it look, so I wanted to do it "antiqued" a little with the colors. I picked out the papers first, and then did my best to match the colors when I was coloring her. I added some browns to "age" it.

The Blushing Bride and soft suede papers from Stampin Up and the the pattern papers from Ancestry (K&Co) went really well together. I really liked the way this one came out and loved it as a center step card. These look really nice and aren't hard to do at all.

Here's the front of the card:

This is from the left side:

This is from the right side slightly:

This is the inside:

The sentiment is computer generated that I made up myself. The "flower" is made out of ribbon and gathering it together with a running stitch. I've seen a lot of this technique lately. Sometimes I like the way it comes out and sometime I don't. I liked this one. The white heart is made of felt and was given to me by EHA...this is so cute!

I'm back again with another card! As you can see, even though I haven't posted the past few days, I have been busy "working"!

Here's another card using "Seasonal Birds" stamp set from Stampin Up. I love the colors on this card, the bright white and red. I may have to make more of these for Christmas cards this year or something similar. The image is fairly quick to color so it wouldn't be hard to do a few.

I bought these doilies in the bakery supply section of Michaels a while back and I'm finally using them! I LOVE the velvet flowers with this.

Here is a little cutie image I got free in a magazine a while back from Lilly of the Valley (LOTV). They have tons of cute stamps, but I haven't been able to buy any yet. I was so excited when I found these in a "Papercrafts Inspiration" magazine! Now I can try out the images (there's 20 of them) and decide what I "need" to buy.

This image is called "Little Girls - Swing Time". The puppy looks like my golden retriever...so cute, and I love the way it's leaning into her. I can totally see myself sitting there with my puppy, he's a "leaner" too! I colored this with my Prismacolor pencils, mostly blending with the pencils, not with mineral spirits.

I'm also entering this in LOTV's Challenge using bingo for gems, flowers, ribbon/lace. So many beautiful entries, but thought I would try anyway...at the very last minute of the challenge!

I made this Best Wishes card using the Seasonal Birds stamp set from Stampin Up. This set makes really cute cards even though the images are small. I like that they're quick and easy to color where they are so small.

I love these soft colors together of yellows and teals. The teal paper is from the Linen Closet paper stack from DCWV. I really like these papers, and have used them a lot.

The sentiment is from Sincere Salutations from SU.
Other papers used are so saffron, very vanilla from SU, and the tan is from my stash of scraps.
For ink I used timber brown from Stazon.
Miscellaneous items used: adhesive pearls, rhinestones, ribbon, Rebecca EF (Cuttlebug), large labels, classic scalloped ovals large (Spellb), deco fan punch (inside card) (MS), prismacolor pencils, gold jelly roll pen.

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

I have some very exciting news!!!! Elphine House Australia is releasing "Daisy" as a new stamp!!!

If you're already an Elisabeth Bell fan, you probably know who "Daisy" is. She is probably one of the most loved images by Elisabeth, and has been unavailable to purchase for quite a while now. I fell in love with this image from the moment I saw it and it was then that I learned who Elisabeth Bell was. I was never able to purchase this before, and I can't tell you how excited I am to finally have her! Being on Elphine House's Design Team and being able to work with this, is icing on the cake!!!

In honor of "Daisy" returning, EHA is having a special celebration/challenge on their Blog which you can read all about it here. It's called "Welcome back Daisy using Fall colors". Here is my creation using Daisy for the first time ever!

I made this Christmas card for someone special who LOVES quilting. I found this tutorial on Split Coast Stampers in the "Resources" section done by Jenna Barber which you can find here.

I saw this back when Jenna first did it and have been wanting to try it out. Just don't look too closely at it! It was my first one, so there are a couple of things I learned that I will do differently on the next one.

Thursday, October 13, 2011

I bought this new Union Square paper Tuesday from Recollections. I love the old fashion look of it and the color combo of red, black, and beige. Even though this has a flower on it, I think it would be a nice masculine card.

It's very strange to make cards without coloring, I feel like I'm missing a step! They seem too "easy" to complete!

Stamps are sincere salutation from Stampin Up and Simple Thoughts from Cloud 9. The papers used, other than Union Square, are black and naturals ivory from Stampin Up and ruby slipper from Bazzills. For ink, I used black from Versafine for the images and for sponging around the pattern papers. For accessories, labels one and fancy tags from Spellbinders, velvet flower (offray), large label, scallop border punches (SU), adhesive pearls, sponge, and chenille and pearl cotton fibers.

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

This is a card I made for the latest Our Daily Bread Designs Challenge Stamping in Time to use "fall colors". I'm just barely getting this in on time, but better late than never as they say.

I used Psalm 138:3 from ODBD Scripture #2 Collection. Beautiful verse that I am very fond of...the key to this is you have to "pray" first.

Someone on Split Coast Stampers did this technique of using fibers as an outline instead of sewing the outline...can't remember who it was, but I'll post it when I find it. I'll do anything to not have to break out my sewing machine. I'm beginning to think that I should though. I just don't have room for one more thing out on the counter in my craft room! We'll see...

For papers, I used more mustard, very vanilla, pumpkin pie, old olive (Stampin Up) and the red is from a DCWV matstack with earth colors. I used old olive ink for the image and more mustard to sponge the image and the embossed mat. The fiber around the image are from my old weaving stash. I used the Scrollwork embossng folder from Cuttlebug and the Classic Ovals Large die and my new Classic Scalloped Ovals Large die from Spellbinders for the image and mat. Miscellaneous items used are ribbon, adhesive pearls, brads, frond punch (Martha Stewart), Petite Petals punch (McGill), Jolee's stickers, piercer, and a sponge.

Tuesday, October 11, 2011

Well, I went to the doctor yesterday and my thumb isn't broken thankfully. I just have a cyst on my knuckle that will hopefully go away with Advil in the next couple weeks! If not, I'll have to have it removed. I'd be so sad if I couldn't do my coloring...it's my favorite thing to do!

Saturday, October 8, 2011

Well, my favorite thing to do is coloring with my pencils. Unfortunately, I'm having lots of trouble right now with my right thumb. I fell a couple of weeks ago in the kitchen...I hurt my thumb and now it's hurting even more. I had an x-ray today and go to doctor Monday to see what the problem is. For now, it's painful to color :-( and pretty much anything else I need to do!

I hope everyone is doing well! I have a little project to share with you using the stamp "Daisy Hugging Dolly" from Elphine House Australia. I love Elisabeth Bell's images, especially any with Daisy, she's so adorable!

This is a treat box I made with a detachable bookmark on the front of it. I made this for Elphine House's challenge to use sweet treats on your card/project. The box is from K&Co's Paper Boxes. I've had these for a long time, but hadn't used them yet. They're really pretty for gifts and have a bunch of die cuts to go with them.

I took lots of pictures of this so you could see everything. (I will list all the details on my Split Coast Gallery if you would like them.) This is the front of the box with the bookmark in place. I used the fancy tag diecut to hold the bookmark in place.

This is the back of the box with the bookmark in place.

This is the back without the bookmark.

This is the front without the bookmark.

This is the bookmark by itself. (Make sure to read all the way down, I have a really funny story about this picture.)

This is the label close up. I wrapped the sides of the label around the box and used a brad to secure it in place. Sorry, the picture is a little blurry.

This is the box opened up. It's really pretty with the 2-sided paper showing.

If you would like to join in the fun for the "Tasty Treats" challenge at Elphine House Australia, we would love you to join us. The challenge starts today and ends in 2 weeks. You can use ANY Elisabeth Bell image for this. The winner receives 2 EHA's stamps of their choice! Here's a link for the challenge where you can see more about it and the awesome Design Team's samples.

I am also entering this in the Split Coast Stamper's challenge WT342 to have a bookmark that's detachable. I really like the way the bookmark came out, and I may make more of these for gifts and maybe one for ME!

Now for the funny story. You may or may not have noticed, but the coloring I did on the bookmark in the first photo had a white space on Daisy's shoulder. I didn't notice it until after I had taken all the pictures. I had erased the color a little to get rid of a mark, but I got interrupted and never fixed it. So, being a perfectionist, I had to fix it for the bookmark only picture at least. Well, I took picture after picture and my camera just wouldn't focus...every single picture was completely blurry. I was getting so frustrated and couldn't figure out what I was doing wrong. So, about 30 pictures later, taken in 5 different places, I realized the pictures weren't blurry at all, I just didn't have my glasses on. LOL!!!

I would just like to say, I LOVE what I do, I'm so excited to use the talents God has given me. I hope I can somehow use them to glorify Him to others! Anyone out there who doesn't know God as their Savior, you are missing SO much. I use to try to do IT on my own, wow, now I wouldn't think of doing anything without Him! I hope you all have God with you in your heart.